


.Kisses of Dead Things.

by Sanguis



Series: Original Work [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Ghosts and Monsters, Gods, M/M, Necromancy, Slash, dead things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanguis/pseuds/Sanguis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dead Things sleep in his mouth, resting on his tongue, breathing from his nose, but not hiding between his teeth. </p><p>Never trust dead people, his Dead Things tell him, never listen to them talk. If he took that to heart, he wouldn’t listen to his Dead Things either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	.Kisses of Dead Things.

**Author's Note:**

> One day, I will stop writing mildly creepy/tragic things. Today is not that day. Hover for translations.  
> Also on fictionpress under the pseudonym Sanguineus

 

 

 

.Exhausted by the ballroom's clamour, converting morning to midnight, he slips away from glare and glamour, this child of luxury and delight.

 

 

 

 

Eugene Onegin; Chapter I, Stanza XXXVI

 

Bartram is born from rain, from dark water and grief. He grows in a clouded, misty landscape, his limbs stretching like the tall trees. Sometimes, he feels that there are horns growing from his head, but this is not true. His mother says as much, as she pets his snowy hair.

Dead Things sleep in his mouth, resting on his tongue, breathing from his nose, but not hiding between his teeth. He never speaks, because those specters and black things want to flee from their cage, and he's all that's left to stop them. His father does not look at him; what use is a silent pale son, what can he hope to gain from such a frail, pale heir?

"You will have no other heir from me," Queen Consort Briar whispers into their son's hair. "You cannot beget a child with any other woman but me, and I will not give you a less perfect heir."

 _There's nothing perfect about that weak creature_ , the Lords whisper. Bartram can hear them – he always hears them; they call his mother “Witch” and him “Her demon-boy”. He can hear the Dead Things too, whispering in his mouth, muttering their secrets between his ears. They are his friends, and together they watch the Kingdom wither and bloom, bloom and wither. [_Nem fé bèzje_ ,](They%20are%20empty) they tell him, [_müssael kün ostü laesse fé bèzje_.](just%20as%20the%20landscape%20is%20empty) The landscape is full of empty trees, longing for life and growth. They see life, where he sees decay. He never tells his mother, even though the monsters in his mouth are hers.

“[Murte, murte](Death,%20death).” She says softly against his hair. “[Ebe fé miye zjerimsse, murte](You're%20my%20hope,%20death).”

He doesn’t blame her when she dies in his fifteenth year; she had hated the life she had landed in. Her suicide is carefully calculated. The rest is up to him now.

  
But he does wish she had taken his father with her. He doesn’t like looking at his father’s face any more than his father likes acknowledging his existence. They gradually reach an agreement, and write it down; Bartram is free to roam the empty landscape during the working days of the week, and his father plants a pin oak tree in honour of his dead wife, to which Bartram can return to when the working days cease.

  
Gently, Bartram calls his mother’s spirit from beyond, and ties it to the oak sprout. She’ll sleep for a long time still, but one day the tree will be big and strong, and Bartram will see Briar smile again.

  
A boy walks the halls of the palace. His name is Noam, a chevalier in training, and he has hair of the darkest ebon, and eyes just as light and grey as the skies over the empty landscape. Sometimes, he grins at Bartram and Bartram tries to mimic the gesture, just for Noam. But he can’t show his teeth, his Dead Things would escape.

  
When they’d been little, Queen Briar had let Noam sneak into the royal chambers to play with the Crown Prince. Noam always bought trinkets of wood and iron – small horses, wooden cups with flowers carved into them, a simple silver ring. To Bartram these things are more precious than the finest silk, the most beautiful jewellery, the gems glittering from the cushions they rest upon.

  
Noam and he give each other notes when they cross paths in the corridors; their fingers brush only lightly, yet the small touch projects a warmth Bartram has difficulty conveying in proper, structured thought. Noam had given him the first note, and Bartram keeps it with him as much as he can. His own messages and replies are sometimes poetic, at other times closer to prose.

  
Sometimes they manage to sneak away into some hidden corner of the palace gardens, sit together on the grass. Noam tells Bartram about his day, about whatever arduous thing he endures for the sake of becoming a chevalier.

  
Sometimes, as Noam softly speaks, Bartram reaches out to his face, lets his thumb caress Noam’s lips. Noam’s sentence trails off, and the smile he gives Bartram is even more lovely than his grin; it’s something sweeter, more intimate. It’s the smile that he sees in his dreams.

  
Bartram leaves the palace during the week, crosses the empty landscape and finds nothing but burnt villages and walking skeletons. They have hair and skin, there’s some blood in their veins, but just like him they refuse to speak. They don’t have Dead Things in their mouth; they’ve just lost their souls. Bartram wants to find them, but his Dead Things tell him not to.

  
He returns to his home with empty hands but his hair is full of flowers, and the girls laugh at him, plucking the flowers from his hair. They’re pink and red, mostly, until they die as they leave his body. He lays them under his mother’s tree, but even then, they refuse to bloom again. He gives one to Noam just to see him smile with his perfect white teeth.

He visits another village, this one farther away from his home. The people are alive, with plump bodies and rosy cheeks.

“Good day, your highness,” they say to him. He walks round and round, looks at their things and their lives. Their flowers have withered.

[ _Nem fé murtem_ ,](They%20are%20dead) his Dead Things tell him. They always confuse him, but he supposes they’re right, these people are dead. He doesn’t always understand how humans work, but as the night passes, he sees their bodies wither too, and their flowers bloom.

“It’s a full moon tonight,” a boy tells him the next morning. His voice is a hoarse whisper, and it’s the last thing Bartram hears him say. The boy has hair as black as the night, and light eyes – but no, it’s not him, it’s not Noam. 

This boy kisses him and Bartram allows it, pretends it’s Noam because he knows he cannot kiss his chevalier. The boy’s skin grows grey, the colour of death, and icy cold. Bartram watches sullenly as the body folds, falls to the ground, remains there.

He leaves.

He goes further and further, crosses a field full of white poppies, until he finally reaches the forest – and his mother had told him many tales of it, of the dark earth she danced on, of the black, winding trees she had climbed, of the crown of bones she had possessed when she had been free. The Weeping Woods, surrounded by a semi-circle of mountains folded upon each other, are just as beautiful as Briar had told.

A little while in, he finds a clearing with a large pond, and a flaxen-haired man carefully stringing his violin as his foot dips in and out of the water. The Dead Things say his name is Niran, and Bartram recognises his mother’s mark on him, a legacy she had never been able to see grow.

Niran scurries away and half-hides in the water when he sees Bartram. They study each other, the features that are similar (the shape of their eyes, the curve of their lips) and those that are dissimilar (Bartram’s hair curls a little less; his eyes are violet whilst Niran’s are brown, and Niran's face is oval-shaped). Then, Niran smiles, says “You have her face, like a heart.” 

It strikes Bartram that Niran, immortal child of the pond, is immune to his Dead Things. His smile is still hesitant, but broadens as he realises that his almost-brother still breathes, still blinks at him with curious eyes. His voice is hoarse, faded with the years of disuse, when he says, “I am – I’m Bartram…”

Niran nods. “That’s a good name. I’m Niran.”

Bartram sits at the edge of the pond and tells Niran – haltingly, as he stumbles on the sounds and shapes of the words his lips have to make – of the fifteen years Briar had lived in the palace. Of how she had looked restful and content as she lay upon her deathbed, of the oak sprout that grows in the palace courtyard. In return, Niran tells him of the little things he remembers of a younger Briar; of how she had gingerly wielded her craft on her bloodied fingers, how she could tear apart things with her nails and teeth if she had to, and then carefully put the pieces back together.

Bartram sleeps in the woods for the night, and returns on the same route. As he walks through the field of poppies, he sees a cut in his finger, and smears it across the first white flower he can reach. Behind and in front of him, the rest of the flowers follow suite. He stops the longest at the village with the walking skeletons that had refused to speak. They’ve stopped moving, but they talk now. They look at him strangely, some with bright eyes, others with dull eyes. Their souls haven’t returned, because when Bartram tries to understand, what they say is rubbish.

[ _Nün kozjaen haetrena murtem,_](Never%20trust%20dead%20people)his Dead Things say. _[Nün sifuye nem poze](Never%20listen%20to%20them%20speak)._ If he took that to heart, he wouldn’t listen to his Dead Things either.

When he returns with blooming and dead flowers to the palace, there’s a feast. The courtyard is empty, there’s no budding tree waiting for him, only Noam with tears in his eyes, and earth that looks like ash.

“They’ve taken down the paintings of her as well,” Noam says. Bartram’s skin turns grey – it’s a feat not to scream and tear the world down.

He marches to his father’s throne room and finds him surrounded with his people. _Nün kozjaen haetrena murzj,_ his Dead Things had told him, and yet his father always does. The air around him grows dark, misty, and tense. His Father-King’s guards grow pale with fear, and when they try stopping him with their blades, the steel withers.

“What is this?” His father asks. “You have no right to this room.”

Gritting his teeth, Bartram points to his absent tree. His father sticks up his chin defiantly. “I will have a new wife, and she will give me a worthy heir.”

Bartram bares his teeth, keeping his jaw locked tight lest his Dead Things flee. They don’t hide between his teeth; they slip between and spread. All around them, the guards and the lords with their ladies drop dead. They don’t die all at once; the closest go first, silently. The men scream, the women clutch their necklaces, as were they amulets for their protection.

“Cease this; I am your King!” his father calls.

Bartram walks away.

Noam finds him in the courtyard, sitting on the little plot of land where his mother’s tree used to grow. Bartram’s skin is no longer grey, but it’s still cold to the touch. He cries against Noam’s chest and wants to say “[Em’aeyisste’be](I%20love%20you).” 

But he can’t, because he has Dead Things in his mouth, and they only know his mother’s language, the language laden with shadows. The sound would be devastating to a mortal. He thinks Noam already knows.

“You’ll plant another and call her to it again,” Noam says. “You’ll be King – better than a King, even.” Bartram tries not to laugh as he thinks, _I’ll never be King._

The Lords say that his father’s new wife, Allyriane, is beautiful. When Bartram finally lays eyes upon her at the feast, he does not see anything that would make her remarkable. All humans have the potential for beauty, and hers has not yet been realised. She’s just as alive as those around her, plump with rosy cheeks. He’s not allowed near her, but he doesn’t need to be. _Soon,_ they say, _that frail, dangerous creature will be of the past_ , but he’s certain none can kill him – not when his skin is made of stone and his bones are platinum.

Within the month, the new Queen walks with a child in her womb. She doesn’t know yet, but Bartram feels the life growing inside of her, and the dead things tell him there’s no hope for the child. He will bide his time.

On his eighteenth birthday, Bartram tastes poison in his wine. It hardly surprises him, and he drinks it regardless; it would be a waste of wine otherwise. He spends the day looking grey and ashen, barely able to hide his delight at the horror he sees on the faces of the culprits (one Lord faints, his Lady mutters “witch-boy” under her breath, and the other three he sees whispering furiously to the King. Queen Allyriane watches him with frightened eyes).

He leaves to wander the fields, this time with Noam at his side. His brother only needs him in the later stages, so in the meanwhile, he will slip from the clutches of the palace, and collect flowers just as he did for his mother.

Noam and he pass by like a storm, but no boys kiss Bartram this time. He lets skeleton girls play with his hair and weave the flowers into the braid he grows. They only do it to the top of his hair, and then each lays a kiss on his cheeks. The last one kisses him on the mouth, but she does not die. It makes him happy to see her walk with her sisters, skin thin and white like the moon. Noam’s smile is beatific. His hair grows longer too, though he rarely braids it. The skeleton girls like to throw flowers at him regardless, so the petals get stuck in his hair.

Noam journeys back to the castle first, leaving Bartram with a kiss on his cheek. Bartram waits a day. Ravens cry when he returns to the palace, their wings fluttering as he passes them. Noam joins him on the way, up, up, up to the tower where the Queen is in labour. The hour is early, but the sky is dark with heavy rain-clouds.

“Halt!” cry the guards, “You are not allowed entrance!”

Noam disposes of them whilst Bartram waits. It only takes a few seconds; Bartram only bothers to count to five. He takes Noam’s hand and together they push at the door. The air in the labour room is heavy, and as he’d expected it is silent, grieving. The child had not lived, of course, his mother’s curse lives on. His father ought not have cut down the tree.

The midwives don’t try to stop him, not with Noam’s dagger still dripping with blood. Bartram takes his brother, staring intently at the ashy skin, the blue lips, the wisps of black hair. _‘[Be zjinret fé ssümaelnen](You're%20only%20dreaming)_ , His Dead Thing tell his baby brother. Bartram kisses his brother’s tiny lips, because it’s time to share his Dead Things.

“What are you doing, you freak!” The mother yells at him. Over her frantic breathing and scuttling to get off the bed, there’s the soft cry of a new-born child.

“He is ours now,” Noam says softly. “Qadim.”

They take him to the throne room, but as they reach the steps up to the throne, Bartram falters. His Dead Things egg him on, devour and immortalise what you love the most, but he cannot.

They take him to the throne room, but as they reach the steps up to the throne, Bartram falters. His Dead Things egg him on,  _ devour and immortalise what you love the most,  _ but he cannot.

“You must,” Noam says when Bartram turns to him. He has not shed any tears since his mother’s death. “You must.”

He doesn’t move, so Noam grips Bartram’s arm and stands on his toes for the kiss - a light press of lips first, but they both know how this ends. Noam parts his lips, pours every last bit of himself into it. Bartram returns it with the same unchecked passion, and feels his heart flutter happily, never mind how awkward their first kiss is.

But they both know how this ends. Noam’s skin turns grey, clammy. Once Noam lies on the floor, Bartram takes Noam’s dagger and cuts out his heart. His new-born brother is silent, even when the blood drips on the cloth he’s wrapped in, even as he watches Bartram eat Noam’s heart. Noam becomes another Dead Thing sleeping in Bartram’s mouth, resting on his tongue, breathing through his nose, but not hiding between his teeth. 

_ I will bring him back, _ Bartram decides,  _ like I will bring back my mother. _

Bartram opens his mouth to sing, and the palace becomes black, filled with spectres from corner to corner.

He does not sit upon the throne as a king, but stands upon the corpses of his father’s kingdom, a god.


End file.
